Why TFL providing 4G on the tube is terrible news

TFL and London mayor Sadiq Khan are opening a tender for private companies to provide 4G on the Tube after the General Election next week. A lot of you will think this is wonderful news – finally, we can keep up with the likes of Berlin, Paris and New York, which have had subterranean coverage for several years.

This is terrible, terrible news. OK, maybe not for everyone. Doctors on call, for example. Or people who want to be able to fire up Tinder all the way along the district line without furiously logging onto the Wi-Fi between Victoria and St James’s Park. But for the rest of us, it’s going to be a technicolour nightmare.

No longer can you send a simpering apology your boss, explaining that the reason you didn’t reply to his nonsense email with the little red exclamation mark next to it was because you got caught at Camden Town. Your WhatsApp and Instagram notifications will be ceaseless. And, worst of all, estate agents – estate agents – will be able to find you even when you’re 50 metres underground.

Then there’s other people – the absolute bastards you have to suffer the indignity of sharing a carriage with. You know the ones. Their suits are too tight, they describe themselves as “red shelf players” and spend their days fantasising about either Anna from marketing or what they would call their Apprentice team (Nebula or Nexus?). It’s bad enough as it is, watching them shuffle from Steve Miller Band to Bone Crusher on Spotify, now they’ll be loudly “thrashing out the deets” right next to your face.

The Tube is many awful things. But it’s also a place of contemplative, silent solitude. One of few parts of London where you can sit – well, stand next to a stranger’s armpit – and have time to think without any electronic noise. You can compose that hilarious reply to your partner’s text. You can relax, safe in the knowledge that it’s perfectly acceptable not to be online. You can sit down and, clattering and flickering lights aside, read a book with absolute impunity. Please make it stop.